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Tuesday, February 12, 2013

I've been here in the Training Center for 3 weeks now and haven't told any of you about what's happening (except for the couple outside my family that have written me........). I love it here! Great people, great lessons, great Spirit! My district is awesome. Our roommates are from Australia and New Zealand and I think the choro from New Zealand (Nepia Choro) could be an Apostle one day. The shimai are also super great!

My companion's name is Denison Choro (Elder). He's from California and so far, we seem to be getting along pretty well. We're kind of different but I think we balance each other out pretty well. And they pray about the companionships so I know it's inspired and that there is a real reason for the two of us to be put together.

On the very first day we walk into the classroom (which is where we literally do everything including personal study and planning), it's a small room that our whole district fits which is made up of roku choro-tachi to roku shimai-tachi( 6 elders and 6 sisters), and our sensei walks in and will only speak nihongo de (in Japanese). He also told us that on our second day we would be teaching our first investigator.....all in Japanese. So we got to work: took a lot of notes and prayed a WHOLE lot. I'm in a bit of a state of constant prayer and I can pretty well pray and bear my testimony in Japanese! But we taught our first lesson which was mostly just, "This is who God is and here's how to pray so will you do it?' And he did! he prayed with us. So then we found out we had to teach him everyday and got to work on the next lesson. We decided just to clarify the last one a bit because he couldn't really understand it super well and at the end we commited him to pray twice a day!! Third lesson was a little more difficult. We tried explaining the Godhead and who Jesus Christ was but it got a little jumbled when we talked about sin, so I felt the need to stop my doryo (companion) (who also does most of the off-the-cuff Japanese) and I just bore my testimony about the my Shukuinushi(Savior). Most of it was in Japanese but I asked him if I could speak a bit eigo de(in english) and I think he felt the Spirit pretty well. We've taught a few lessons since, but I don't think they are particularly worth mentioning. I think I forgot to mention that he's actually an American teacher that is actually a member role-playing as his favorite investigator from his mission named Ueda. So it's kind of cheating but we and he take it pretty seriously. Whether or not he's actually a real investigator doesn't matter: we just are acting as if he is and praying that we might be able to understand his needs and meet them the best we can.

The schedule is pretty crazy: 6:30- wake up, 7:00 in class, planning, 7:45 breakfast, 8:20 class and then basically either language study, class, or personal study until 9:00 in the evening. There's gym time and stuff scheduled as well as meals and devotionals, but for the most part we just learn Japanese (which I am awful at, by the way!) or Gospel Doctrine. It's pretty exhausting but amazing all the same. I certainly look forward to my P-day naps (3 hours today). Well I'm running out of time so I'll update you all in a week or two!

SEND ME LETTERS!!!! There's a thing called Dearelder.com that is awesome: just type up, basically an email, and they'll print it out and give it to me the same day! Also I don't have any addresses, so if you want a letter you need to send me a letter!!!

SHOUT OUT: To Bishop Vincent (and family)- thanks for the letter about Seth. I really appreciate it. And the cookies you sent were positively joyous!!

Mina san o ai shiteimasu!!

Elder Spurling

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